2,377 research outputs found
Concordant cues in faces and voices: testing the backup signal hypothesis
Information from faces and voices combines to provide multimodal signals about a person. Faces and voices may offer redundant, overlapping (backup signals), or complementary information (multiple messages). This article reports two experiments which investigated the extent to which faces and voices deliver concordant information about dimensions of fitness and quality. In Experiment 1, participants rated faces and voices on scales for masculinity/femininity, age, health, height, and weight. The results showed that people make similar judgments from faces and voices, with particularly strong correlations for masculinity/femininity, health, and height. If, as these results suggest, faces and voices constitute backup signals for various dimensions, it is hypothetically possible that people would be able to accurately match novel faces and voices for identity. However, previous investigations into novel face–voice matching offer contradictory results. In Experiment 2, participants saw a face and heard a voice and were required to decide whether the face and voice belonged to the same person. Matching accuracy was significantly above chance level, suggesting that judgments made independently from faces and voices are sufficiently similar that people can match the two. Both sets of results were analyzed using multilevel modeling and are interpreted as being consistent with the backup signal hypothesis
Energy bursts in fiber bundle models of composite materials
As a model of composite materials, a bundle of many fibers with
stochastically distributed breaking thresholds for the individual fibers is
considered. The bundle is loaded until complete failure to capture the failure
scenario of composite materials under external load. The fibers are assumed to
share the load equally, and to obey Hookean elasticity right up to the breaking
point. We determine the distribution of bursts in which an amount of energy
is released. The energy distribution follows asymptotically a universal power
law , for any statistical distribution of fiber strengths. A similar
power law dependence is found in some experimental acoustic emission studies of
loaded composite materials.Comment: 5 pages, 4 fig
Breakdown of disordered media by surface loads
We model an interface layer connecting two parts of a solid body by N
parallel elastic springs connecting two rigid blocks. We load the system by a
shear force acting on the top side. The springs have equal stiffness but are
ruptured randomly when the load reaches a critical value. For the considered
system, we calculate the shear modulus, G, as a function of the order
parameter, \phi, describing the state of damage, and also the ``spalled''
material (burst) size distribution. In particular, we evaluate the relation
between the damage parameter and the applied force and explore the behaviour in
the vicinity of material breakdown. Using this simple model for material
breakdown, we show that damage, caused by applied shear forces, is analogous to
a first-order phase transition. The scaling behaviour of G with \phi is
explored analytically and numerically, close to \phi=0 and \phi=1 and in the
vicinity of \phi_c, when the shear load is close but below the threshold force
that causes material breakdown. Our model calculation represents a first
approximation of a system subject to wear induced loads.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure
Crossover Behavior in Burst Avalanches of Fiber Bundles: Signature of Imminent Failure
Bundles of many fibers, with statistically distributed thresholds for
breakdown of individual fibers and where the load carried by a bursting fiber
is equally distributed among the surviving members, are considered. During the
breakdown process, avalanches consisting of simultaneous rupture of several
fibers occur, with a distribution D(Delta) of the magnitude Delta of such
avalanches. We show that there is, for certain threshold distributions, a
crossover behavior of D(Delta) between two power laws D(Delta) proportional to
Delta^(-xi), with xi=3/2 or xi=5/2. The latter is known to be the generic
behavior, and we give the condition for which the D(Delta) proportional to
Delta^(-3/2) behavior is seen. This crossover is a signal of imminent
catastrophic failure in the fiber bundle. We find the same crossover behavior
in the fuse model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Effect of discontinuity in threshold distribution on the critical behaviour of a random fiber bundle
The critical behaviour of a Random Fiber Bundle Model with mixed uniform
distribution of threshold strengths and global load sharing rule is studied
with a special emphasis on the nature of distribution of avalanches for
different parameters of the distribution. The discontinuity in the threshold
strength distribution of fibers non-trivially modifies the critical stress as
well as puts a restriction on the allowed values of parameters for which the
recursive dynamics approach holds good. The discontinuity leads to a
non-universal behaviour in the avalanche size distribution for smaller values
of avalanche size. We observe that apart from the mean field behaviour for
larger avalanches, a new behaviour for smaller avalanche size is observed as a
critical threshold distribution is approached. The phenomenological
understanding of the above result is provided using the exact analytical result
for the avalanche size distribution. Most interestingly,the prominence of
non-universal behaviour in avalanche size distribution depends on the system
parameters.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, text and figures modifie
Extracting quantum dynamics from genetic learning algorithms through principal control analysis
Genetic learning algorithms are widely used to control ultrafast optical
pulse shapes for photo-induced quantum control of atoms and molecules. An
unresolved issue is how to use the solutions found by these algorithms to learn
about the system's quantum dynamics. We propose a simple method based on
covariance analysis of the control space, which can reveal the degrees of
freedom in the effective control Hamiltonian. We have applied this technique to
stimulated Raman scattering in liquid methanol. A simple model of two-mode
stimulated Raman scattering is consistent with the results.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Presented at coherent control Ringberg conference
200
Optimal quantum control in nanostructures: Theory and application to generic three-level system
Coherent carrier control in quantum nanostructures is studied within the
framework of Optimal Control. We develop a general solution scheme for the
optimization of an external control (e.g., lasers pulses), which allows to
channel the system's wavefunction between two given states in its most
efficient way; physically motivated constraints, such as limited laser
resources or population suppression of certain states, can be accounted for
through a general cost functional. Using a generic three-level scheme for the
quantum system, we demonstrate the applicability of our approach and identify
the pertinent calculation and convergence parameters.Comment: 7 pages; to appear in Phys. Rev.
Existence of solutions for a higher order non-local equation appearing in crack dynamics
In this paper, we prove the existence of non-negative solutions for a
non-local higher order degenerate parabolic equation arising in the modeling of
hydraulic fractures. The equation is similar to the well-known thin film
equation, but the Laplace operator is replaced by a Dirichlet-to-Neumann
operator, corresponding to the square root of the Laplace operator on a bounded
domain with Neumann boundary conditions (which can also be defined using the
periodic Hilbert transform). In our study, we have to deal with the usual
difficulty associated to higher order equations (e.g. lack of maximum
principle). However, there are important differences with, for instance, the
thin film equation: First, our equation is nonlocal; Also the natural energy
estimate is not as good as in the case of the thin film equation, and does not
yields, for instance, boundedness and continuity of the solutions (our case is
critical in dimension in that respect)
Failure avalanches in fiber bundles for discrete load increase
The statistics of burst avalanche sizes during failure processes in a
fiber bundle follows a power law, , for large avalanches.
The exponent depends upon how the avalanches are provoked. While it is
known that when the load on the bundle is increased in a continuous manner, the
exponent takes the value , we show that when the external load is
increased in discrete and not too small steps, the exponent value is
relevant. Our analytic treatment applies to bundles with a general probability
distribution of the breakdown thresholds for the individual fibers. The
pre-asymptotic size distribution of avalanches is also considered.Comment: 4 pages 2 figure
Burst avalanches in solvable models of fibrous materials
We review limiting models for fracture in bundles of fibers, with
statistically distributed thresholds for breakdown of individual fibers. During
the breakdown process, avalanches consisting of simultaneous rupture of several
fibers occur, and the distribution of the magnitude of
such avalanches is the central characteristics in our analysis. For a bundle of
parallel fibers two limiting models of load sharing are studied and contrasted:
the global model in which the load carried by a bursting fiber is equally
distributed among the surviving members, and the local model in which the
nearest surviving neighbors take up the load. For the global model we
investigate in particular the conditions on the threshold distribution which
would lead to anomalous behavior, i.e. deviations from the asymptotics
, known to be the generic behavior. For the local
model no universal power-law asymptotics exists, but we show for a particular
threshold distribution how the avalanche distribution can nevertheless be
explicitly calculated in the large-bundle limit.Comment: 28 pages, RevTeX, 3 Postscript figure
- …